Drumbeat
by Dark-Elk
Summary: The heart of the army is never the king, nor its commanders. No, the heart of the army is the drummer...Please R&R, it's my first WC fic, I normally write SC!


Drumbeat  
  
By: Dark-Elk  
  
This is my first Warcraft fic; I'm a pretty well-known Starcraft author, but I figured I'd try my hand at this universe. This is only a one-shot fic until I figure out what I'm doing in this Universe. Please, please, PLEASE R&R, tell me what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, etc. Thank you!  
  
+-+-+-+  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The massive war drums pounded, sending a massive blast of sound across the battlefield, lending courage to the bearers allies and striking dread into the hearts of the foe.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The elven archers loosed their arrows from their bows in a withering rain; the sky was nearly blotted out by the sheer quantity of the projectiles. Some burst into flames at their aphelion, exploding upon impacting within the enemy ranks, decimating the already broken lines.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The horses of the devout Paladins of the Light thundered across the littered field, deftly maneuvering around the fallen bodies of friend and foe, around massive war engines, around the cowering enemy soldiers vainly trying to preserve their most valuable possession. . . their lives. The Paladins were ruthless, lopping the heads off of any enemy soldiers that were nearby as they charged towards and through the enemy lines.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
Mages and sorceresses picked their way through the field disdainfully, not at all pleased with the filth of the field and the lost blood pooled around the bodies. Occasionally an enemy soldier would take it upon himself to attack the mages with devastating consequences. Arcane energies loosed by the mages flitted across the broken ground while the hulking water elementals guarding the sorceresses pounded through anything that posed a threat.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
Groups of swordsman surged across the field, roaring at the top of their lungs, armor shiningly brilliantly in the little sunlight that pierced the rain of arrows. Swords slashed through the downed enemy, permanently removing them from the burden of living. Notched enemy blades would occasionally swing towards the swordsman, the wielder intent upon not being alone in death, but the soldier was always quickly surrounded and brutally hacked to pieces  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
Massive catapults and ballistae creaked across the field, the immense wheels grinding the obstacles into the ground. Loading crews scurried alongside their siege engines, loading and priming them while moving, and then releasing the lashed cord, sending their projectile crashing into the nearly nonexistent enemy lines, slaughtering them where they stood.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The enemy soldiers were standing their ground in sloppily fortified trenches opposite the allied lines, many cowering in fear, but a scant few bore hardened faces to match the tempered steel of their weapons. They were the only reason the lines hadn't completely fallen apart, the only reason the battle hadn't ended yet. They fought fiercely, guarding every inch of ground they could, intent upon not relinquishing any more than necessary without due cost the to allies. They knew that if they could hold on for a few minutes more, their reinforcements would be at hand, enough to singularly turn the tide of the battle. . .if only the could live long enough.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The brunt of the allied forces had finally advanced within a fair distance from the trenches and were preparing for the final rush, the surge that would break the spine of the enemy defense and wipe them from the field of battle. Regiment commanders reformed their charges, quickly estimating losses as they did. Knights traded in their heavily notched broadswords for undamaged lighter swords, knowing full well that the remaining enemy soldiers had only light armor and that the broadswords that had served them faithfully would be overkill.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
A lone figure appeared at the horizon behind the enemy lines, apparently astride a horse. A cheer rushed through the lines; the allies had stalled long enough in their overconfidence. The figure pumped a fist into the air twice, and then vanished completely. The lines halted their cheer, unsure of what was happening.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The king sat in alone in a tent far removed from the field of battle, analyzing a magically enchanted map that was giving him a complete overview of the battle. His face bore the smile of a victor, the smile of the champion. The smile was replaced by a mask of pain accompanied by a grunt as he slowly fell forward onto his map, blood seeping from the small dagger wound dealt by the death knight who had appeared behind him, catching him completely unaware.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The death knight atop his undead mount once again occupied the horizon behind the enemy lines. His fist pumped into the air twice again, but this time he didn't disappear. Instead, a massive army appeared behind him, the army of the damned that the enemy soldier had made a pact with. With a final fist pump the army charged forward, seething over the trenches and crashing into the allied lines.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The army seemed massive to the majority of the allied soldiers, but the regiment commanders shouting orders told them that they had less than half the strength of the allied forces. Emboldened by the news, cries of war rippled through the lines as they charged towards the undead army.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
It was like a revisiting of the past hours; archers rippled arrows through the sky, holy Paladins of the Light slammed through the enemy lines shrouded in the light of their faith, mages and sorceresses dealt out death and destruction with mere gestures of their hands, and soldier's swords sliced through undead flesh like knives through butter.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The battle shifted with the arrival of the undead mages, the necromancers. With the incanting words of daemonic power, the slain soldiers of both the enemy and allied forces rose and joined the undead ranks wielding the weapons that had served them faithfully in life. Those that had formerly been friends and comrades now fought savagely against each other.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
Meat wagons appeared at the rear of the undead lines and began firing into the trenches, brutally informing them of the undead army's termination of their pact. Reeking clouds of disease and death wafted through the trenches, killing anyone they touched and rebirthing them as twisted masses of flesh bearing only the most rudimentary flames of intelligence behind their eyes. The lumbering creatures hauled themselves from the ground and shambled into battle.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The allied lines were managing to hold their ground; a rout hadn't occurred yet, but some of the swordsmen had fled from the battlefield as though the very minions of Hell were following them, some of whom were. The arrival of the flesh creatures brought forth a slow retreat from the allied forces, and the undead army took advantage of the small gains in ground.  
  
"Rally to the drums! We can hold them." a commanders voice yelled before being brutally ended by a sword plunged into his throat. The order given, the entirety of the allied army pulled back towards the drums, drawing from them what little courage they could.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
An awful screech sounded across the battlefield, bringing some of the weaker allied forces to their knees. The undead suddenly ceased their attack, pulling back from the skirmish. The allies cheered, believing they had won the battle, and jeered the undead army who stared passively back at them.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
Silhouettes appeared in the sky, wings pumping furiously up and down as the massive creatures labored to keep themselves aloft. Regardless of the clumsiness of their flight, their speed was nothing short of breakneck, and the bone dragons were quickly overhead, making strafing runs at the foolishly clustered allied army. Shards of ice shredded through living flesh as the few remaining elven archers fired haphazardly into the sky, vainly hoping to force the bone dragons into retreat, but to no avail.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The strafing runs of the bone dragons spurred the army of the damned into their final assault. The twisted flesh creatures pounded through the lines, cracking the allied armies core. Behind them, masses of undead skeletons followed behind, savagely tearing the Paladins of the Light from their mounts and onto the ground where they were rent limb from limb. Mages and sorceresses tried to summon what little magic they could, but the undead taint was affecting their abilities, and they perished one by one, none of them able to produce any defense. The archers, clad only in light armor, were the last of the allied lines and were summarily crushed, leaving the final living human on the battlefield untouched, the drummer.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
He stared furiously into the undead lines, none of whom seemed eager to approach him. Completely unarmed, the drummer could do nothing but beat the wardrums in defiance of the undead host.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The undead lines parted like a massive curtain, allowing the leader admittance into the center circle. The death knight rode slowly into the circle, staring at the drummer who defied him the entire time  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
Determined not to show his nearly complete fear, the drummer continued to pound the wardrums, keeping up the cadence that had been drilled into him years before, the cadence that had formed the background noise of an innumerable allied campaigns.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The death knight entered the circle and hopped off of his mount, striding purposefully up to the drummer. Brandishing a small dagger, the same dagger that had slain the allied king, he slowly held it up to the sunlight so the drummer could see.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
The drummer gave a curt nod to the death knight, and pounded his drums again, defying the death knights unspoken order.  
  
*BOOM BOOM*  
  
With that, the death knight slammed the small dagger into the throat of the drummer.  
  
*BOOM -*  
  
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+  
  
"In the eyes of the damned, it makes no difference whether you are a king or a pauper, hero or villain, warrior or drummer. Regardless of who you are, you die anyway, your soul damned to serve the undead host for eternity." 


End file.
